Daegan vs the Table

Calcon - The Overview

I have been terribly busy as of late but it seems to be slowing to a crawl... at least for this week.

I am going to reminisce about the time called Cal-con. It is a wonderful mythical place filled with lords and ladies alike. A place called home to many dragons and dragon slayers. A place where any "geek" can call home.

This weekend gaming convention started early Friday afternoon for myself and a few friends. We came in early; I was asked if I was lost by a young gentleman by the gaming stand. I was not lost of course I was there to immerse myself in the religion known as D&D.

I had come right from the farm and had both children in tow. Daegan seemed amused by all the large fellows asking "Joeo?" (This referring to my husbands burly gamer friend by the name of Joel.) I met Steve by the entrance and we clambered together amongst the crowd waiting to get the one piece of paper between you and ultimate gaming. Once the passes were allocated, Steve and I made our way to my vehicle and drove the babies to my grandparents; picking up Tacos on the way of course. What better way to start off an entire 72 hours of gaming then the holy store of Taco bell.

We lost track of time and suddenly I choked down the rest of the taco I had just unwrapped and stated that the first round of RPGA D&D started in T minus 20 minutes. We scrambled back to my Hyundai giving my grandma a peck on the cheek, and the babies a quick hug goodbye. Can we make it from one end of the city to the other in 20 minutes? (actually more like 17 now). Are we able to drive from one end of 16th AVE to the other in that amount of time? Can we best the other cars and make it in time for an amazing adventure of D&D? Sadly no, we showed up at quarter after 2 and all the games were being run and full already. "Oh well" Steve grumbled after listing to my profound apologies and we went to search for another adventure to begin. We visited the vendor room full of abstract art, cooky costumes, and a generous amount of gaming gear. I bought a pair of prosthetic vampire dental inserts that you initially mold to your teeth, and took a gander at many of the other exhibits. There was a variety of beautiful leather masks, hand carved, and painted an amazing array of florescent colors. There were booths full of board games, booths full of exotic weapons, and booths full of random steam punk gear.

There was a few hours before Steve and I had another D&D game so I went to the crammed main area where I joined a game of Puerto Rico. This is where we needed another player and I randomly turned around and asked the first person I saw. He introduced himself as Brent and decided to play. Ultimately we both failed and didn't have near enough points to come close to winning.

Now back to the important part... The first game of D&D. I invited Brent downstairs and we joined a table with Steve. It was a quaint little game DMed by my new friend Abbey. I took a pre-made character (Warden) and went on a mission with my fellow companions to help an Officer of the guard with their quest. It involved clearing out a cave while he stayed outside (geeze these PC's aren't very helpful are they?). We ended up killing the bad guy and completing the adventure.

I invited Brent upstairs for a drink and we sat and talked gaming for a few hours. Even though the bartender says it was only a double scotch I felt like I had to pick myself off the floor. I guess that's what I get for gaming all day with an empty stomach. I eventually retired back to my grandparents ready to get up at the crack of dawn for more D&D.

The sun filters through the blinds pouring over on to a now screaming baby next to me. My grandmother is an absolute doll and lets me rest a while longer. I get up not too long after and throw on a pair of jeans and a tank top. Perfect gamer gear for the day. Nothing to reveling today for I want others to actually pay attention (aren't I just so very vain?) I gather all my gear and head to the convention yet again. I meet up with Steve, Matt, Nick and Bri and we head upstairs to settle down into the room which we will call home for the next 8 hours.

The Dungeons and Dragons Grandmaster Tournament begins. A extremely well written adventure by another new person I can now call my friend. John wrote the adventure and we were lucky enough to have him as an amazing DM. At first by the look of him I expected a shy, reserved older gentleman but was very pleased to see that under that look was hilarious character with a sense of humor that mimics my own.
Before we started I was praying to the gods of D & D, Mishakal, maybe Torm, that in the characters that were available for the tournament that there would be a bard. There was 5 pre-made characters, 1 for each of us. Steve rummaged thru the books as we were divvying up the character sheets. "Here is your Bard!" I was leaping with joy and not only on the inside. I did my little happy dance as I looked over the sheet realizing that not only was it a bard, but it was a summer rhymer bard. With every attack I had a funny limerick to go with it. Some rhymes include:

"I'm not going to bother insulting you, but you would be awfully tasty in a stew"

"Don't you love my battle stance? Am I scary, did you pee your pants?

"I would insult you but your too daft, instead ill stand here and viciously laugh!"

"Oh grandma what big teeth on you! Lets clamp those jaws with crazy glue."

"My vicious mockery will kill you all, it will even drop you off a wall"

and "all I want for Christmas is your too front teeth"

The adventure went as follows. We were in the guard under the command of Matt's character. The outlying lands have been recently raided by ugly green lizardmen and the guard have lost contact with one of the forts in the swamp where the children of the high commander happened to live. Our job was to go see what happened to them. We set out on our trek and made it to the fort killing some lizardmen and a dire beaver or two on the way. When we get to the fort we find that the guards had locked themselves in the armory leaving the kids to defend the fort while they got pissed off dwarven ale. Long story short we defended the fort from the lizardmen and brought the kids home safe.

We then had to go kill the lizardmen so they would stop attacking the human outposts. We found out the reason why the lizardmen were attacking, was that the humans used to trade with them, fur for weapons but the kingdom made a treaty with the goblins recently and the goblins have been using those weapons to attack the lizardmen. With the money I had acquired from the quest I went to the shop and purchased 2 carts pulled by mules and filled them to the brim with old weaponry. Our team then headed out to the place where the humans and the lizardmen used to meet. We get there and our leader Matt lets me handle being the diplomat and plugs his ears because he cannot know about what I was about to do. We were then brought to the lizardmens leader who happened to be a silver dragon (I guess all the other teams competing fought and killed the dragon) I decided on a different approach and used my diplomacy on her. I brought all these weapons and would like to give them to the lizardmen to defend themselves. The dragon agreed to stop attacking the human outposts as long as we dispatched with the goblin leader. This was fine and dandy but as part of the guard we could not start a war against a nation that we had a peace treaty with. So my ultimate plan was hatched. We trek to the goblin nation and find their leader. He is surrounded by his cronies and we are there under the guise of trading. I stand in the front telling the leader that I am here to trade and he wants to see the goods. I open up my coat in a old shady salesman type of way showing off my goods (I had to make it sound dirty). Of course I was selling Dire rat pelts which is an ultimate insult to the goblin people who keep them for pets. They declared war and the battle begun. By battle we mean we attacked them and had disposed of their leader in 18 seconds before any of them could even get an attack off. So this is how we ended the adventure. We killed their leader and the tribes disbanded and we completed the adventure.

During the last part of this adventure Steve, Bri and I were trying to get into our costumes also because the costume contest started not long after. We ended up eating dinner together with a few friends including Brent and enjoyed conversing with one another about the days events. We headed down to the contest and did our little walk on the catwalk. Steve came out with 3rd, and myself and Bri came out with 2nd in different categories obviously.

Sunday was about the same with us joining a D&D game that Andy ran in the morning. Before the game we were told that we either got 1st or 3rd and had to sit on it for most of the day. We were all in Ecstasy as we were told we had gained the First place spot and gotten our reward. We all came away with D&D miniatures, cal-con dice, dice bag, posters, gift certificates, entry into next year, and an assortment of other stuff. On top of that I ended up having a winning raffle ticket and getting a bag full of more.

All in all it was the most amazing weekend I have had in a long time. I met some very wonderful people that I will hopefully see again.

Brent you rock, thank you john for such an amazing adventure, Dan thank you for your humor all weekend as well as the talks we had. Thank you abbey for the first great RPGA adventure I have done, and thank you Steve, Matt, Nick, and Bri for letting me be part of such a wonderful team.